Pages

Tuesday, 15 November 2011

The Conservative Party is a new political vehicle, so this will be a shorter than usual post!

Historical representation of women:The Conservative Party was founded very recently, in August this year. It has an alliance with the Kiwi Party and the New Citizen Party, which stands candidates under their banner rather than compete.

They have had no MPs to date and have had only one, male, leader (Colin Craig).

There are a further 22 candidates standing for the Conservative Party in electorates, who are not on the List, and of these only one is a woman (Grace Haden, contesting Maungakiekie). Thus in the whole candidate pool 17% are women. (9/52).

Likely future representation of women:
It doesn't seem credible that Colin Craig will take Rodney. That said I have been wrong, oh so very wrong, before. If he did win it then chances are the party would bring in Kathy Sheldrake as well, but after that there are no more women until the 7th spot.

Other observations on candidate diversity:The influence of the New Citizen Party appears to have provided some ethnic diversity, with a number of Pasifika and Asian candidates present on the list. The age range looks quite wide too. Many of the profiles are scant or non-existence, so as always please add what you know in comments and I'll be happy to update.Links:Index of A Woman's Place posts from 2008 and 2011- so far Act, Greens, National, Labour in addition to this post for 2011

8 comments:

Tom Ackroyd
said...

From the Wellingtonista's candidate Q&As, Gordon Copeland, standing for the Conservatives in Hutt South:

When did you last use the library, a community centre, or a council-run sports facility?My wife uses the library constantly – at the Miramar and Kilbirnie and Central branches – and keeps me supplied with some great reading.

To be fair; the Conservative party were cobbled together rather quickly and they were canvassing heavily for candidates in that short time frame. Could the imbalance in representation of women be more a result of haste to position candidates rather than a deliberate slight by the party hierarchy? Kathy Sheldrake is the candidate in my electorate and she'll be getting my vote.

They've folded in the New Citizens Party? That's intriguing, considering the scuttlebutt I heard was that New Citizens was receiving funding from sources in China...although since supposedly most new Chinese immigrants at least are National/Act voters then maybe the Conservatives aren't too big a stretch. It is unfortunate that Labour and the Greens woke up to the power of the new Asian immigrant vote way too late...

"That's intriguing, considering the scuttlebutt I heard was that New Citizens was receiving funding from sources in China..."

That scuttlebutt is based purely on 'Yellow Peril' conjecture.

"It is unfortunate that Labour and the Greens woke up to the power of the new Asian immigrant vote way too late..."

I don't think that's just bad recruitment on the Left's part. Chinese immigrant communities are generally pretty reliable conservative all over the world - they're famous bulwarks of conservative areas in the US, Canada and the UK. Probably due to their conservative social traditions and focus on small businesses.